A CRACKDOWN on tax dodgers is set to target Britain’s middle-class professionals and tradesmen, from accountants and lawyers to plumbers and builders.

Crown lawyers said yesterday they were launching a “radical” new focus on individuals whose cheating helps to cost the country the equivalent of £769 per family.

But there were fears that the drive will aim at the easy-to-catch instead of hitting huge fraud rings or the legal tax-minimising by multi­nationals such as Amazon and Google which costs the Treasury hundreds of millions of pounds a year.

“There is an incredible amount of hypocrisy in targeting people at the bottom for what are often very small amounts while ignoring the billions being avoided by the biggest companies,” said Murray Worthy of UK Uncut which campaigns for alternatives to Government spending cuts.

There is an incredible amount of hypocrisy in targeting people at the bottom for what are often very small amounts while ignoring the billions being avoided by the biggest companies

Murray Worthy of UK Uncut

“That is where the Government should be putting its attention. I don’t think this will be seen as a genuine attempt to tackle the problem. If they think that going after plumbers working

for cash in hand will dispel public anger, they are very much mistaken.”

Labour’s shadow attorney general Emily Thorn­berry added: “While it is important to go after individuals who are fiddling their tax returns, the Government must not lose sight of tax-evading companies and VAT fraudsters who are costing this country billions.”

The new drive was promised by Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) have agreed to increase prosecutions from around 300 a year in 2010, when there were 200 convictions, to 1,500 a year by 2014-15.

Mr Starmer will say in a speech tonight that tackling tax dodgers is even more important during the recession when law-abiding workers are suffering “real hardship”.

Ahead of the speech, he said tax consultants who push “dishonest” schemes and the professionals who invest in them would be key targets.

He said there had been cases involving lawyers, tax advisers and plumbers but the increased prosecutions would be chosen to cover a variety of different types of case “to send a clear message as to the breadth of our coverage”.

Mr Starmer is expected to say: “There is a long-standing myth that unlike many other offences that the CPS has to deal with, tax evasion is a victimless crime.

“So let us work out the cost to every family and adult in the UK. The latest estimate suggests that tax evasion costs the UK economy £14 billion a year. That is the equivalent of £530 from every household or £769 per family.

“A victimless crime? This is money that could have been spent on schools, hospitals, fire-fighters, police and public services.”

But low-tax campaigners said the problem highlighted the urgent need to simplify Britain’s complicated tax rules that provide too many opportunities to sidestep paying tax.

Matthew Sinclair, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “Prosecutions will do nothing to stop individuals and businesses with the means to do so taking advantage of the legal loopholes in our overly complicated tax code.

“Politicians need to make our taxes simpler, fairer and more competitive.”

Tax expert Ray McCann, of Pinsent Masons, said: “It seems certain this will mean that anyone caught by HMRC will be more likely to be prosecuted than has been the case in the past.

“Individuals within those categories of taxpayer where HMRC has introduced special arrangements for dealing with unpaid tax – lawyers, doctors, tradesmen and so on – will continue to be at more significant risk.”

Most avoidance and evasion cases are by tradition settled through negotiation with HMRC or fought in the civil courts, with criminal prosecutions reserved for the most serious evasion.

An HMRC spokesman said the nearly £1billion extra allocated to it to tackle tax-dodging since 2010 had enabled it significantly to step up its enforcement operations.

“The vast majority of taxpayers are honest,” said the spokesman. “They expect us to tackle the small minority of cheats who deprive the country of vital revenues.”

Multinationals have already been warned they could face new crackdowns after fury at companies including Amazon, Google and Starbucks who have legally paid very little tax in the UK, despite having huge sales here.